The Lanelle conundrum
Jan. 16th, 2011 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzLong has it evaded me: the look for the Lanelle costume. But I've finally boiled it down to "a sort of X-silhouette, with lots of layers in various colours of jersey. Or something."
I'd already acquired jerseys from ebay (I always buy my fabrics in the UK or Germany, as shipping isn't too painful then) and I'd figured out the skirt. Mostly this had to become a sort of "drowned kind of person thingy" look. You see, I'm having difficulty with the precise things. But that's okay, because it makes this an amaaaaaaazing journey into the deep bowels of creativity, where sparks are born and musings have screaming brainfarts.
The skirt was done quickly enough, once I'd made up my mind between half- or full circle. It became a half-circle skirt, made from a loosely woven linen that I'd tried to dye black but had come out a dark grey which looked greenish in lamp light. To create the drowned kitten look, I abused my scissors on the thing, keeping the fabric taught and just ripping into it with open scissors.
And then I did a dye experiment which failed. But there's no pictures of that. Instead of the faded look I was hoping to achieve by just hanging the skirt with the tortured hemline in a bucket of dye, I got an overall green because I didn't rinse out the fabric properly before throwing it into the wash. Now it's just a good forest green. And of course, the hemline is completely destroyed, yay!
But now comes the more difficult part. I'd bought jerseys in two tones of brown, a green and a camo green.
(Bottom layer is the skirt) The jerseys match pretty well, but I was a bit bummed to find out that the camo was printed, making it impossible to use in a "long tunic kind of thingy, with ragged hemline, each layer just a tad shorter than the one above it" way. Because the edges will bounce, and then you'd see the white. Not my idea of a good camo costume. So the camo is out.
I did stumble across this gorgeous supple leather that will work well with rabbit furs, so I'm at least listening to Lanzaned some times, which is on the top. One of the brown jerseys is reserved for tights, the other is in this picture.
But then I figured: waittaminute, I have this horrid linen that's been in a bad dyebath and will have more stripes as we wash it a coupla times, how about I add that? It's the top one in this picture. Thing is, it makes the brown look really out of place now.
And then I figured I had some wool scraps lying around, you know just the thing, and they're the same colour as the leather, wouldn't you know it. Fizzle fizzle went the brain. Hurrah Hurrah went my muse. Stuff popped.
All in all, I've got a lot of options here, and I think I'll just try and add as many layers as I can, working from the bottom up. I'll use the camo jersey as the under-tights, perhaps make a second pair of tights, slightly larger, with rips in it over that. That'll keep my legs warm enough.
Then there's the skirt, then there's the brown long tunic with the loops over the thumbs, followed by probably the green long tunic with wider sleeves, and we'll see how that drapes on the mannequin before we continue with the rest.
Choices choices...
I'd already acquired jerseys from ebay (I always buy my fabrics in the UK or Germany, as shipping isn't too painful then) and I'd figured out the skirt. Mostly this had to become a sort of "drowned kind of person thingy" look. You see, I'm having difficulty with the precise things. But that's okay, because it makes this an amaaaaaaazing journey into the deep bowels of creativity, where sparks are born and musings have screaming brainfarts.
The skirt was done quickly enough, once I'd made up my mind between half- or full circle. It became a half-circle skirt, made from a loosely woven linen that I'd tried to dye black but had come out a dark grey which looked greenish in lamp light. To create the drowned kitten look, I abused my scissors on the thing, keeping the fabric taught and just ripping into it with open scissors.
And then I did a dye experiment which failed. But there's no pictures of that. Instead of the faded look I was hoping to achieve by just hanging the skirt with the tortured hemline in a bucket of dye, I got an overall green because I didn't rinse out the fabric properly before throwing it into the wash. Now it's just a good forest green. And of course, the hemline is completely destroyed, yay!
But now comes the more difficult part. I'd bought jerseys in two tones of brown, a green and a camo green.
(Bottom layer is the skirt) The jerseys match pretty well, but I was a bit bummed to find out that the camo was printed, making it impossible to use in a "long tunic kind of thingy, with ragged hemline, each layer just a tad shorter than the one above it" way. Because the edges will bounce, and then you'd see the white. Not my idea of a good camo costume. So the camo is out.
I did stumble across this gorgeous supple leather that will work well with rabbit furs, so I'm at least listening to Lanzaned some times, which is on the top. One of the brown jerseys is reserved for tights, the other is in this picture.
But then I figured: waittaminute, I have this horrid linen that's been in a bad dyebath and will have more stripes as we wash it a coupla times, how about I add that? It's the top one in this picture. Thing is, it makes the brown look really out of place now.
And then I figured I had some wool scraps lying around, you know just the thing, and they're the same colour as the leather, wouldn't you know it. Fizzle fizzle went the brain. Hurrah Hurrah went my muse. Stuff popped.
All in all, I've got a lot of options here, and I think I'll just try and add as many layers as I can, working from the bottom up. I'll use the camo jersey as the under-tights, perhaps make a second pair of tights, slightly larger, with rips in it over that. That'll keep my legs warm enough.
Then there's the skirt, then there's the brown long tunic with the loops over the thumbs, followed by probably the green long tunic with wider sleeves, and we'll see how that drapes on the mannequin before we continue with the rest.
Choices choices...
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 07:14 pm (UTC)One suggestion I would make is dying the camoflage fabric one of the lighter colours, if you are concerned about it showing on the white side, or a darker colour where you will get a more subtle, blended look to the pattern.
Look forward to seeing the pictures when it's done.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 12:36 pm (UTC)The camo fabric will probably take dye as it's a cotton jersey, but I wonder that if I dye it, the camo effect will probably go away. Still, it's a good option to turn it into fabric I'd actually use, instead of this white-ish monstrosity that will probably never be used!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 12:34 pm (UTC)Unfortunately I have mainly ugly synthetic fabrics in non-matching colors and no need/use for another costume.
Still, somewhere in the back of my mind is a "use all those crappy scraps in one huge project/dress" idea. All I need is a day off and a kick in the butt.
I'm very curious and looking forward to your end result. :)
~Brenda~